So, a little info about the Fitbit flex (In case you haven’t read the plethora of ads and reviews on fitness trackers). During the day, it tracks steps, distance, and calories burned. At night, it tracks your sleep quality and wakes you silently in the morning. Flex bases calculations like calories burned, etc on your personal information such as age, height, weight, etc. It lets you know how you’re doing with little LED lights on the wristband. Each light represents 1/5 of your daily goal (mine is currently 10,000 steps a day) and it buzzes when you reach your goal.
You let it know when you go to bed and when you wake up and it tells you how you slept. It senses your active minutes and counts your steps. Enter your food for the day and your activities, and it calculates calories in vs. calories burned
To see your stats, there are options to create both an online account and a FitBit app on your phone. The tracker syncs your information to your account’s “Dashboard”, where it lets you know how you’re doing for the day, week, month and so on.
Since I typically workout in the morning, I can get in a lot of steps early in the day. I especially love the days when I take a class that involves a lot of footwork, like Zumba or Kickboxing, or the awesome treadmill/weight combo at Burn 1000, since each foot movement adds to my total! I tend to park farther away from the entrances to buildings now to add steps, and I never mind getting items for customers where I work, since I up my step count running to the back!
Also, I'm already used to logging my food in a calorie counting app, so using the FitBit food log is really easy. It has a large food database, and I can save the calorie counts on the foods that I eat on a regular basis. And the same holds true with entering activities. Enter the activity (like walking, running, weight lifting, cycling) in the dashboard log, enter the time you did the activity (like starting at 8am for 45 minutes), and it figures the calories burned based on the tracker info.
I love logging my sleep, too. I set the device in sleep mode when I go to bed and press the “I’m awake” button on the phone app when I get up in the morning. It tells me how long I slept, how many times I was awake and how many times I was restless.
The device comes with a tracker, two bands (one for a smaller wrist; one for larger; Mine is hot pink) a charger, and a USB sync for putting the info on your computer. The device will automatically sync with the phone app when the wristband is close by.
What I love about the tracker is that it gives me instant gratification. No one loses weight overnight. What helps me is seeing the instant feedback. The added appeal of a self-tracking tools is that seeing the numbers so soon can be motivational: I’m rewarded when I do well and it spurs me on to workout when I feel lazy. It even texts me when I get to a new goal, and, like many social media apps, it gives me badges for milestones like miles walked or steps taken. But just getting started is a goal in itself.
Starting in the fall, the new iPhone operating system is supposed to have an app that links all of your fitness devices and gives you info about your workout progress. It will sync to heart rate monitors , food logs and even send the info about your workout to your trainer. (Check out the iPhone TV commercial that shows everyone working out. The 1961 song "Chicken Fat" by Robert Preston, developed for a youth fitness program for President John F. Kennedy's administration, plays like a marching band in the background.)
-Get used to the idea of self-monitoring. Pick something that is not difficult to track, that is fun, easy to interpret, and doesn't require you to spend a fortune. (a FitBit is perfect)
-Set realistic, achievable goals. It’s better to have a series of small steps than one huge one. If you keep your goal-setting realistic, with regular reviews and small increments, the changes you make to your lifestyle to achieve the goals will be gradual and more long-lasting.
-Celebrate your achievements- Treat yourself when you manage to sustain your new level. If you miss your daily, weekly or monthly goal, review the reasons, be honest and compassionate with yourself, reset the target to a lower level, and try again.
-Pick the right device. There are lots of devices out there, and it isn’t easy to tell the good ones from the bad ones. Read user reviews and ask people who have them help you choose a quality device and use the data meaningfully.
I love my FitBit, but I’ve heard great reviews from friends on the Jawbone, Nike Fuelband and the Garmin Vivofit. But it depends what you want to track. Some show the information on the actual wristband, others, like my FitBit, require syncing on a phone or computer. Some also have a heart rate monitor strap that sends info to the device. I like using a heart rate monitor separately when I’m working out. But I’ve compared my actual calorie burn from my heart rate monitor to the tracker’s calculations and they are very close, so the tracker is pretty accurate.
And since the band has become a daily adornment, I’d kind of like to have color and fashion options. The plastic band looks cool when you’re wearing workout or casual clothes, but what about when you’re going to a party or celebration? If there’s dancing involved, of course you want your tracker to measure those steps, right?
Other jewelry designers, are you listening? I think there’s a market for party jewelry trackers!!
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